I understand the first sentence, which is easy: "Until now, once Japanese women got married they became homemakers, and it was common for them to spend the rest of their lives as homemakers."

It's the second sentence that has me somewhat stumped.

My book says that とりしきる（取り仕切る）="to manage all by oneself", which I am sure applies to those women managing all by themselves, and not their husbands, but I can't get that to work in the clause beginning with "夫の. . ."

Is the sentence －as a whole －"They were women who bore and raised their children, worked at home [did housework], and were managing on their own so that their husbands could work well."?

I am probably missing something somewhere, somehow. For "so their husbands could work well", I'd expect よく instead of いい，for one thing, so I am misinterpreting the relative clause, I think.

I think 夫の働きいいようにとりしきる would be "manage everything so the husband can work easily (=focus on work / finds it easy to work)".

Probably involves one or both of the following? (I'm a bit shaky on this)

彼のいいようにさせておけ（＝彼の好きなようにさせておけ） [ニューセンチュリー和英辞典]Let him do as he likes. / Let him have his own way.この靴は軽いしなかなか歩きいいわ [GG]These shoes are light and really easy to walk in

Side note: "they were women who..." is a little off."[doing these things]が主婦でした" = "[~] was what a housewife was" / "[~] was what it meant to be a housewife"(implying that a housewife would not do much more than that)

Hyperworm wrote:I think 夫の働きいいようにとりしきる would be "manage everything so the husband can work easily (=focus on work / finds it easy to work)".

Probably involves one or both of the following? (I'm a bit shaky on this)

彼のいいようにさせておけ（＝彼の好きなようにさせておけ） [ニューセンチュリー和英辞典]Let him do as he likes. / Let him have his own way.この靴は軽いしなかなか歩きいいわ [GG]These shoes are light and really easy to walk in

Side note: "they were women who..." is a little off."[doing these things]が主婦でした" = "[~] was what a housewife was" / "[~] was what it meant to be a housewife"(implying that a housewife would not do much more than that)

I'm not too swift in using formatting / HTML or whatnot for quoting, so I'll use the method I can manage. Hopefully it's acceptable. I use "> > >" to quote and then I answer below.

> > >Probably involves one or both of the following? (I'm a bit shaky on this)

Your explanation totally works, in context.Why?Well, I did not recognize the social context until I read your post, but what you point out makes total sense, based on Japanese history, I'd venture to add. I have done some reading on Japanese history, including family structure, the underpinnings of traditional Japanese family structure and so forth, and so the physical situation you describe -- the wife working to "free up" the husband as external bread winner -- is totally cogent. It supports your sentence.

> > >Side note: "they were women who..." is a little off.

Got it. I didn't proofread my sentence as well as I should have. I see what you mean.